Best way to bag a cheap E60 diesel sport?

[GraemeP]

I am waiting for an insurance payout, and really like the idea of a 5 series diesel sport (recently had an E46 sport touring written off, just waiting for payment).

Ideally I would like a sport, or sport spec (ie decent seats, asthetically pleasing from the outside) 2.0 or 2.5 diesel (as they should be cheaper than a 3.0), not fussed about manual or diesel (it will be daily driver, I have a Cateham for stirring the spirit!!).

I am not that fussed about mileage, or where it has come from - as long as it is honest.

I would also love a tourer but suspect that it might be out of my range.

Am I best off trying to get to an auction to buy an ex fleet car? There are the odd few around the £11k mark on here, and on e-bay - am I dreaming to hope to find one for around the £9-10k mark that has all the toys and is in good condition?

Any help welcome - thanks!!

[AB]

Only advice I can offer on this one is to go for at least the 525d if at all possible. 525/530/535 are 6 cylinder. 520 is 4. Having had a go in both over this last couple of weeks, starting the 6 cylinder in the morning does not make you cringe like the 4 does and it is much smoother.

[AB]

Also, IIRC the 520 is a relatively new addition and therefore I would doubt if they have made it into the 9/10k range.

In fact, i doubt if you can find a diesel M sport for 9/10k but would love to be proved wrong.

[StuB]

To be honest, you'll be like shooting fish in a barrel I'd have thought. Enough to choose from to walk away if in any doubt and lots of people willing to trade.

I have a very early E60 530dSE now well over 100k miles, which has had the swirl flaps fail at great expense to me (c£4.5k in total, as I decided we'll keep the car till it dies, so had all damaged components renewed), so do your research and shop carefully or budget for some work to prevent the failure (actually quite a cheap fix) should you choose a car that might be at risk. Other than this issue however, I think the car is fantastic and it walks all over my Sept 08 Audi A6 Avant. We have the expensive adaptive seats and they're superb, so you don't have to have the M sport model, though I agree, the M Sport bodykit is very nice.

[GraemeP]

AB said:

Also, IIRC the 520 is a relatively new addition and therefore I would doubt if they have made it into the 9/10k range.

In fact, i doubt if you can find a diesel M sport for 9/10k but would love to be proved wrong.

I think you will probably be correct!

There are a few in the classifieds at or around £11k, which is why I was querying the potential to get an ex lease car from an auction (I have no experience of doing this at all).

I didn't know the 520 was a 4 pot - agreed that absolutely rules them out for me!

There seem to be a few going through at auction (might have been 520's though) tomorrow at Blackbushe - anyway I can find out what they sell for once the auction completes?

[Mr Green]

StuB said:

I have a very early E60 530dSE now well over 100k miles, which has had the swirl flaps fail at great expense to me (c£4.5k in total, as I decided we'll keep the car till it dies, so had all damaged components renewed), so do your research and shop carefully or budget for some work to prevent the failure (actually quite a cheap fix) should you choose a car that might be at risk. Other than this issue however, I think the car is fantastic

How can you tell which ones could have this problem?

[StuB]

I've heard a few theories, but 6 cylinder 3 litre auto's is what I understand. Google BMW Swirl Flaps and you can read about it all night! It would seem this is not just BMW's that have an issue with fatugie failure of swirl flaps either.

Later cars have a revised inlet manifold, as does mine now. Not really sure why an auto would warrant them and manual not.